Polisario Flies into Rage as Mcdonalds Opens Restaurant in Laayoune

From their rear base in Tindouf in South-Western Algeria, the Polisario front is watching with dismay the development momentum in the Moroccan southern provinces.

The opening of the first restaurant of the US fast-food giant, McDonal’s, in the largest city in the Southern Provinces, Laayoune, is yet another blow to the Algerian-funded separatist militias in their quest to keep foreign investments away from the region.

The flow of foreign investments to the Moroccan Sahara erodes the Polisario’s allegations about the region and shows the credibility of Morocco’s development efforts.

The Polisario fears that the increasing foreign investments in the region will eventually lead to an increasing international support for Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Sahara, hence its fury at the opening of McDonalds.

On August 9, McDonal’s opened its first restaurant in Laayoune, on a surface area of 1,137 square meters.

The restaurant lies at the heart of the city adjacent to the Dcheira Battle square and employs 200 people in direct and indirect jobs.

The project is the fruit of the investment forum held in Laayoune in 2015.

This investment is reflective of the environment of peace and stability in the southern provinces conducive for the attraction of investments by multinationals.

Since it retrieved the Sahara from Spain in 1975, Morocco has been leading tireless efforts to upgrade the cities of the region, which now boasts development index higher than the national average.

At the international level, Morocco has also led a diplomatic and political battle after the 1991 ceasefire to defend its national sovereignty and the centuries-old territorial integrity of the country, of which the Sahara is an inseparable component.